Spellmaker

Elsie’s pulse quickened as Emmeline fished around in her apron pockets and retrieved a small envelope. It had a grayish tint to it. Elsie’s stomach hit the floor. The Cowls’ letters had been the same color. Their orders—Merton’s orders, for they’d been from her—had always arrived in nondescript envelopes slipped into her things. Each had included information about how her actions would help the country’s poor, only most of it had been lies.

But no . . . she’d never get another of those letters. Ogden had penned all of them, and he was now free from his spell. Surely Master Merton wouldn’t attempt to contact her directly. Not that Elsie could use the evidence to indict her. Even if Elsie hadn’t destroyed all her letters from the Cowls, they implicated Elsie as a willing participant in criminal activities, and the handwriting could be used against Ogden.

Offering the best smile she could manage, Elsie thanked Emmeline, took the envelope, and sat at the table, opening the letter as Emmeline sliced the pie. She could feel Ogden’s eyes on her, but the note had nothing to do with Master Merton. The handwriting was the postmaster’s, the message from Bacchus Kelsey. She saw his name before anything else, and her chest tightened.

I’d like to see you soon. Can we arrange a meeting?

Licking her lips, Elsie folded the message tightly and stuck it under her leg. She hadn’t seen Bacchus—that was, Master Kelsey—since he’d appeared in Ogden’s hospital room after being freed from a mound of cement conjured by an opus spell. Something the police still didn’t understand, but thanks to Ogden’s ability to withstand and deflect the mind-twisting of a truthseeker, they didn’t suspect him, Elsie, or Master Kelsey of any wrongdoing.

Elsie badly wanted to see Bacchus, talk to him, stroll with him . . . but she feared for him, too. Merton had to suspect—at the very least—that Elsie knew the truth, and Bacchus had been Merton’s most recent target. If he were to become involved in the hunt to get the spiritual aspector behind bars, he would likely become her target again. It would be better for the Algarve aspector to remain uninvolved. Better, indeed, if he were to sail back home to Barbados as soon as possible, regardless of how miserable Elsie would be to have an ocean between them.

“Elsie?” Ogden asked, oblivious to the pie being served to him.

Emmeline smiled. “It’s not from Mr. Kelsey, is it?”

Elsie felt her ears heat. “It’s Master Kelsey, Emmeline.”

“Oh, right.” Of course, her friend seemed not at all put off by the reminder that Bacchus was now echelons above Elsie in status. “But is it?”

A lie formed in the center of Elsie’s tongue, but one look at Ogden had her swallowing it. There’d been too many lies between them, intentional and unintentional. He needed to know.

“It is,” she answered, and Ogden’s shoulders slumped. “He just wants to visit before his departure.”

Emmeline looked despondent. “So he’s still leaving?”

Straightening and accepting her own slice of steaming pie, Elsie answered, “Of course he’s leaving. He was only in England for his advancement to mastership, and that is done. Why else would he stay?”

She kept her eyes fixed on the small pool of gravy oozing onto her plate, but she felt Ogden shake his head at Emmeline. Did he know her so well, or was he reading her thoughts? That was how rational magic worked—it affected the mind. Mind reading, telepathy, the dampening or surging of emotions . . . But she would know if Ogden used magic on her, wouldn’t she? One of her abilities as a spellbreaker was to detect magic. Physical spells could be seen, rational spells had a certain feel to them, spiritual spells had a sound, and temporal spells had a smell. She’d been on pins and needles the last week, waiting for the sensation that Ogden was using his magic on her. But it had not yet happened. Either Ogden had refrained from nosing around or he was very adept at hiding his magic, as he’d been for the near decade she’d known him.

Either way, Elsie couldn’t help the tar-thick thought that bubbled up the base of her skull. It was better for Bacchus to leave, not just because it was safer, but also because he’d held her hand. Because she was calling him by his first name.

Because she’d kissed his cheek and could still feel it upon her lips.

Elsie had let him get too close. Any closer, and he was liable to discover whatever it was that turned people away from her, that marked her as forgettable, unwanted, unlovable. Alfred had found it, as had her mother and her father, her siblings. With his spell gone, Ogden would likely discover it soon enough, too.

“Oh, Elsie,” Emmeline said, reaching for her, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was curious, is all.”

Snapping to attention, Elsie bucked up and pasted on a smile. “Oh no, Emmeline. I’m not bothered at all. I was just thinking about the last novel reader we had, and how it seemed so hopeless for the baron at the end.”